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The mist of the www
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this post was submitted on 10 Apr 2026
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I don't respect them because most instances a 403 is more than adequate for your security. The only time I agree with having a 404 over a 403 would be file-specific pathing, but realistically the entire file directory should be a 403 instead of a 404, And then if the user is authorized to access the resource(but it isn't there), then it gives a 404.
But if there is no resource, how can the system know whether they are authorized? 403 it is.
Whether you respond as a 404 or a 403 would be dependent on whether or not the user who is logged in has the authorization to read the previous directory.
A site administrator, for example, would have the authority to read the previous directory, which means that the site administrator would know whether or not the resource existed or not(as the previous directory would list it) so in which case a 404 would be proper. However, a user who doesn't have authority to read the previous directory should not have the ability to know whether or not it exists. so a 404 would not be proper here because the proper one would be a 403 because it's inherited from the previous directory.
edit: changed traverse to read, as traversal doesn't mean you can see what else is there.
Yea, it doesn't matter too much in most instances, but there are times when it might, especially if the URL itself has some meaning embedded in it. For example if part of the path is a SHA sum of some content, which is fairly common, it might be bad to allow someone to determine if that resource exists